I knew that one of the PCs would have to sacrifice themselves to save Arcanis, so I had a contingency plan all along to rescue whoever that was. Since that was Sebastian, arguably the most destructive character in the group, it meant that any adventure involving undead was going to be that much harder.

However, the last time our heroes faced off against ghosts, way back in Madness in Freeport, they were unprepared. Since then, both Kham and Vlad acquired ghost touch weapons. And both of them have bane weapons against Carcosan beings, which is precisely what they were up against. I changed many of the infernal references to Carcosan references instead, and gave just about everything that wasn’t undead has the Farspawn template.

That said, one big difference in how the heroes approached this adventure is that they had a mission. In the original version of this adventure, the goal is to find the children lost in the house, which means tearing the place apart. Instead, I changed the party’s goal: find the portal to Carcosa. They know it’s in the basement. And if you think about it, aren’t all portals to horrible places in the basement?

This means the adventure goes very quickly. Our heroes are in no mood to explore; they want to find the portal and get the hell out of there. So they skipped a whole section of the module with almost no prodding from me. Indeed, they made a beeline straight for the portal without knowing where it was!

What was supposed to be a creepy haunted house ended up being more like a raid on a drug den. But the adventure bridged the gap to Carcosa, and in that regard it was definitely a success.

During the first few months of last year, my cash flow was a little restricted. So, when RPGNOW put The Dungeon Alphabet pdf on sale for a little over $5, for GM’s day, I bought it and printed it out. I was quite happy with my printout, but when I heard that the first printing of the HC had Sold Out, The Collector spoke up and immediately wanted a copy! A couple of weeks later, when tooling around on ebay, I found the copy mentioned above and snagged that sucker! It arrived yesterday and The Collector is quite pleased!

Ah, but the book itself! It’s an Old School Feast! A dream tour of the Archetypal Dungeon. A delightful gestalt of Imagery, Essays and Random Tables, which combine to form a most inspiring whole.

There’s a short essay for each letter of the alphabet. C is for Caves, U is for Undead and so forth. The little essays discuss the topic chosen for the letter, describing its place in the overall idea of the Dungeon and discussing how it might be encountered, or experienced in the underworld. Each page features Old School art, wonderfully illustrating the subjects of the alphabet entries. Lastly, each entry has a Random Table, providing excellent ways to manifest these ideas in your dungeon! The entry for B has two tables and some of the tables have multiple parts or sub-tables.

My Favorite entry, is Y Is For Yellow! The accompanying Peter Mullen Illustration is superb! The Essay and Random Table, combine with the art, to splendidly evoke the sinister nature of that weird color. I enjoyed every single entry, of course and I’m itching to sit down and design a Dungeon!

The Sepher Yetzirah, a famous Qabalistic work, describes how God created the Universe, utilizing the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. The rich information found within The Dungeon Alphabet, will serve any DM well, as he/she goes about the business of creating a Dungeon Masterpiece!

Excellent bestiary, full of interesting new twists to throw at players. Matches the new 4e flavor quite well while still keeping the older versions at heart, especially in monster powers. Have used it many times, vry worth the price!

Arguably the best of the old-school dungeons. Dark Tower is one of Paul Jacquay's (Griffin Mountain) best.

As with most Jacquays settings, there is a coherent storyline linking the monsters and issues of the Dark Tower. This was designed as an old-school dungeon (kill monsters, take stuff) but a GM willing to put in some effort will find that it works as a heroic saga.

The only real weakness lies in the extremely wide range of encounter levels: The GM will have to be careful that the party does not get ahead of itself, only to be wiped out by a monster that they should have met 'later', or for that matter, that the players will not get too frustrated by numerous interspaced encounters that are so low level that no XP are awarded.

I was disappointed by the Monster Manuals' lack of basic animals (the indices of animals and vermin at the end of the 3rd edition MM was great). Some of the best adventure story moments come from animals, from predators in the night to circus escapes or the savage pets of arch-villains, so I was pleased to find this product aiming to partly fill the gap.

Content:
The product covers a decent range of animals, mostly theoretically tropical species, but there are a couple of tundra species (woolly rhino and mammoth) and most could be readily adapted to other climates. I was especially pleased to see frogs, eagles and weasels in there, which are a bit more unusual as monsters, but much easier to slot into a game without extensive planning than some of the more dramatic beasts. Not that I don't intend to use those as well! Several monsters are useable as mounts, so I was pleased to see a table of mount costs and carrying capacities as well. On a slight downside, some of the more obvious creatures (big cats, apes and elephants) either are or will be in the Monster Manuals, though having extra versions available won't do any harm.

Presentation:
Goodman Games stick with the familiar Monster Manual format, which is clearly presented, with the usual encounter groups and tactics sections. There were a few minor editing mistakes, irritating to people like me, but I haven't spotted anything that would affect gameplay (although it does make me wonder if a number might be off here or there). The artwork follows the cover style of clear black-and-white illustrations; if you lust after the MM full-colour spreads you'll be disappointed, but I considered it a plus, as I imagine that would at least triple the price. As I'm looking for gaming material, not an art book, the illustrations are a bonus and the low price tag suits me fine. Some pictures are more striking than others (I get the impression Mohn enjoyed drawing the brontotherium) but nothing to make you claw your eyeballs out.

XCrawl, the reality show of the future; with a slight fantasy twist. If you liked films like The Running Man or enjoyed the Cube; then you will enjoy this.

This is the ultimate dungeon crawl, with not just treasure; but fame and fortune awaiting those brave enough. Watched by millions, teams are pitted not only against the XCrawl; but also other teams. The Dungeon Judge (DJ) controls the Crawl, while players attempt to plunder the riches within.

Its a good solid game, with a fantasy feel; but with a bloody reality twist. Gain fame points for that special move you have developed, the crowd roaring your name as you slay the zombies. However, remember one thing about XCrawl - if you die, you die!

Another good product from Goodman Games. This one pulls us into the Soviet Union and as such makes it a little more difficult to suspend disbelief than the other products in this series have. Not to bash the scenario -- it is well written, well thought out, and follows the usual Goodman approach of great flexibility, permitting the players to wander where they will and where the clues they discover take them. There are a couple of key bits of information in this one that the Keeper may even have to "cheat" in order to ensure the players get in a timely manner, but overall it has a good design and good pacing. The antagonist chosen for this one is perfectly appropriate to the locale and the servitor races will make for some very interesting scenes from time to time. Admittedly, this one requires a somewhat more "pulp-ish" approach to it, though Goodman had the excellent sense to provide some alternate play info to permit players who rely less on their fists and guns to do a job to play it through too.

The biggest problem with this one is the entire concept of the Soviet Union -- this is in the midst of Stalin's collectivization drive and foreigners are held in great suspicion throughout the Soviet Union -- but most ESPECIALLY in places like Moscow and Leningrad. Yet, oddly, though the OGPU (later the NKVD, and still later the KGB) make occasional appearances in the game, there is little feel for what that would have really been like had a group of foreigners suddenly appeared in Lenin's city and started running around investigating things. In reality, they probably would have simply disappeared into Lyubianka or the Gulags and that would have been the end of it all. In this game though, the OGPU is almost benevolent, and no Soviet citizen appears to feel much hampered in chatting with the foreigners. Goodman tried to give a good reason for all these foreigners to show up, and did the best they could with the premise, but overall it just feels kind of forced, and highly unlikely. Despite that, it's a fairly fast-paced and fun scenario, and worth playing if everyone can suspend disbelief long enough to play it out. (As a side-note, my original play group was filled with people taking Russian language and history classes in college, and it would have been extremely interesting to see how they would have played this one out. In their case though, it probably would have been better to have played Soviet characters instead of foreigners (or, at most, one foreigner) and done a lot of the role-playing in Russian instead of English!)

Anyway, DriveThru did their usual excellent job of reproducing this one, and the text, art-work and handouts were easily usable and legible. There are a couple of ties to the previous adventures in the series, as well as a couple of plot hooks that may be designed to foreshadow additional future products in the series, or may simply be something the Keeper can use to trigger off a scenario of his own design. Either way, they are a nice touch. The pregenerated characters, again, provide some useful motivational examples to help the players figure out why they got involved in this one, but overall, due to the difficulties in travelling to the Soviet Union, the even greater difficulties in returning to the United States and/or Great Britain AFTER such a trip, and the lack of genuine menace from the Soviet Government (and yes, I know that an organization OF the Soviet government invited the foreigners -- but that still wouldn't have prevented the OGPU from doing their thing), I can only give this one a "4."

Another excellent effort by Goodman Games. This one, in fact is better than the first one. It takes us into quite an interesting scenario and the choice of antagonist is much better for this setting than it was in the first one. The scenario, again, is designed to accommodate the players instead of forcing them down a particular investigatory path, and in this case succeeds rather well. The opening scene is more or less a set piece, but from that point on, the players are free to go whither they will (and where the clues they discover take them). There are multiple opportunities to discover the clues the players need, and while there is still the possibility of missing a key bit of info due to a bad roll, the Keeper can always overcome this by judicious use of the clue rules from something like GUMSHOE. Anyway, this one has not only the usual areas the players will likely investigate in the course of the mystery, but even a delightful little interlude (not really necessary to the scenario itself, but way cool all the same) in a wax museum!

There are a couple of ties to the preceding scenario book -- Death in Luxor -- as well as the usual handouts and pregenerated characters for use by a group just starting out. The pregenerated characters are even useful for established groups in that the history section of each character provides an excellent example of motivation for a character to become involved in the story. As always, DriveThru's reproduction of the material is excellent with no problems noted in reading the material, viewing the art work, or reproducing the handouts noted. The handouts, by the way, are extremely well done. This one easily earns a "5" in my book. Good job to both Goodman Games and DriveThru!

I was extremely pleased with this entire series of supplements for CoC. In the case of Death in Luxor, it was clear, well laid out, and flexible enough to permit the Keeper to run it in any order the players care to approach it in. Of all of the ones published to date, this one felt the most like it would "railroad" the players based on the first scene out of the blocks, though a clever Keeper (with a clever play-group) should be able to overcome that issue. The player aids were extremely well done, and easy to access, print and produce. And the pre-generated characters (while not useful in and of themselves to an established player group) provide some excellent examples of how characters may have become involved in the adventure (motivations). Admittedly, if I were picking a servitor race and plot for Egypt, I probably would have picked the Sand Dwellers as my primary group with maybe ties to Yig or someone vice what was chosen here, but overall, it just has a really nice feel and flow to it and despite that particular quibble, I like this scenario very well.

An additional bonus to the AoC series of supplements is that there are ties between the adventures and even the newspaper clippings provide some additional information that could lead to other adventures. All in all, an awesome job.

As always, the quality of the reproduction by DriveThru RPG was simply awesome. No problems reading, viewing the art work, or reproducing the player handouts. Overall, this one earns a "4" mostly because of personal prejudice against the servitor race and Great Old One chosen for this setting, and because it does try to railroad the players to some extent, but if it weren't for those two factors, it would easily make a "5."

Probably my favorite module in the great and prestigious long-running line of supplements, Th Mysterious Tower is a great old school-styled adventure that I have run with many of my groups for greqat effect and hours of enjoyment. While it 's aimed at low-levels, it can be easily scalable for Joseph made a well thought-out series of plans a nd encounters that can be easily adapted to siut your specific player groups.

While it's easy tu run, it's by no means straightforward, and with careful scheming of the DM's part it can easily keep the players on their toes and thinking their way out of increasing trouble.

Finally, I must admist that 3e wasn't my cup of tea, but the best thing with every Goodman Games module is that it can easily be adaptyed to suit your group's playing style or the system you've chose. So, yes, it will work--and marvellously so--with Pathfinder and be very easy to transplant into any of the newer Rune Quest settings... or go real old-school and use your AD&D or AD&D "nd Edition rules with it, with minimal hassle.

All in all, a solid, easy to read and use module from Goodman Games. I heartily recommend it.